Passion Killers

February 10, 2005 | 3 Minute Read

For those of you like me, who are naturally creative and mildly A.D.D. oriented, a calendar is the death of any passion whatsoever.
I’ve been following an interesting experiment for the past 2 weeks and trying to schedule absolutely everything. I thought that because of my random nature, this would give me more productivity and the ability to allow myself to be scattered. I planned various 1-2 hour tasks ranging from music composition, blog reading, t.v. time, even down to those moments where I like to let me brain drift away ( my “Dream” time ). The first week, I just followed it, no questions asked. The second week I decided log my my true actions as I was doing them and then alter the calendar at the end of the day to show a more accurate picture. It seems that after the first day, I noticed that I “diverted” from the plan. As this week went by I realized that I did this a lot, too much as a matter of fact. So much so, that all the tasks and activities that were the “important” ones, would be the ones I’ve skimped on. I noticed is the more structured I tried to make the day, the more I “diverted”.

I knew that I was having difficulties with the calendar but I didn’t realize it’s full impact until this morning.

After following the advice of Shakti Gawain, thanks to a post by Curt, I decided to go for breakfast and write away in my Moleskine. It was intended just to be something out of the ordinary and since it was a random impulse I decided to follow it. I figured I haven’t really been following my calendar anyway so, why not.

I followed some of the ideas brought forth by today’s posts, about discovering passion and enjoying the journey. I started by categorizing my Needs, Talents, Passion and Purpose. Which was definitely insightful. And then followed it as a trigger to write my fantasies. And once completed I had realized that nowhere, did I have what I was doing currently in there. Hmm, considering I quit my job for this and I’m dwindling away my resources to complete this, this picture has caused a little bit of concern for me.

This calendar has killed my passion. Well … not really killed, I think maybe more like seriously wounded it. As I mentioned in my first sentence, I’m a creative and slightly A.D.D.individual. Chaos is my friend because if you were to look into my mind, that’s what you would see. I’ve been trying to fight it because somewhere along the way, I got the idea that to be an entrepreneur you need to have some semblance of order. You need to have goals and plans, and plans within plans. Structure, structure structure, blah, blah, blah. Well, #!@% that! Goals and plans are one thing, but screw structure!

This is a prime example of when what you are doing conflicts with a fundamental character of who you are. I think all of us have intrinsic characteristics that define us, it’s like the story of the frog and the scorpion. Regardless of how much we learn, or how we change, those characteristics will still continue to be underlying values and core beliefs. Organized people will always organize. Giving people will always give. And, like me, dreamers need to dream. When you fight that fundamental core, the fire starts to fade. You can’t feed a fire with water, or dirt, or rock. So, by forcing myself to a pattern, I was fighting my chaotic nature, which directly resulted in dwindling my passion, regardless of what it was.

Another scary thought is that I’m simply not doing what it is that truly lights my fire. I’m eating leaves when I should be eating logs. But unless I go through this process, and stay open to the possibilities, I’ll never really truly find out.

So, now that I’ve come to these conclusion, what am I going to do next? I have no clue.